From the far end of the corridor, hidden behind the carved jaali screen, Anirudh Rathore stood motionless. His eyes, sharp as a predator's, followed the two women as they stepped deeper into his world.
He had no need to be introduced. He had seen enough.
The event planner — Ishika — was exactly as his reports said: competent, cautious, professional. She would do her job well. But it wasn't her that caught his attention.
It was the girl at her side.
The painter.
She moved differently — as though she didn't belong in the palace's golden cage, yet carried a light strong enough to challenge its shadows. Her eyes lingered on details no one else noticed — the covered portrait, the echo of silence, the weight of the air. She didn't just look… she felt.
And he noticed.
Anirudh's jaw tightened, his gloved hand curling against the marble pillar. No one had told him about her. No one had dared. Yet here she was, walking under his roof, leaving traces of herself in the halls of his ancestors.
He should have dismissed her presence. But he didn't. He couldn't.
Instead, a dangerous thought flickered through his mind.
Beautiful.
Not the kind of beauty the court adored, nor the polished charm of painted faces. Hers was raw, unshaped, defiant in its innocence. And it unsettled him — because he already knew what he would do with such beauty.
Possess it.
His shadow moved with her, though unseen. Every flick of her hair, every flicker of uncertainty in her gaze, burned into him like a mark. His. Already his.
When her head turned slightly — as though she sensed being watched — his lips curved. A cruel, unreadable smile.
She didn't see him today. She wasn't meant to. But the silence she felt, the weight she couldn't explain — that was him.
Anirudh Rathore never entered lives softly. He consumed them.
And this girl, this Aayat… she had just walked straight into his ruin.